story of my life
by Ginger Kayleigh
Summary: Are one person this talking about her life .


Special Edition, Illustrated

CONTAINING ADDITIONAL CHAPTERS BY KAYLEIGH BREWIN

Who has taught the deaf to speak?

And enabled the listening ear to hear speech

From the Atlantic to the Rockies,

I dedicate

This Story of My Life.

Editor's Preface

This book is in three parts. The first two, Miss Keller's story

And the extracts from her letters, form a complete account of her

Life as far as she can give it. Much of her education she cannot

Explain herself, and since a knowledge of that is necessary to an

Understanding of what she has written, it was thought best to

Supplement her autobiography with the reports and letters of her

Teacher, Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan. The addition of a further

Account of Miss Keller's personality and achievements may be

Unnecessary; yet it will help to make clear some of the traits of

Her character and the nature of the work which she and her

Teacher has done.

For the third part of the book the Editor is responsible, though

All that is valid in it he owes to authentic records and to the

Advice of Miss Sullivan.

The Editor desires to express his gratitude and the gratitude of

Miss Keller and Miss Sullivan to the Ladies' Home Journal and to

Its editors, Mr. Edward Bok and Mr. William V. Alexander, who

Have been unfailingly kind and have given for use in this book

All the photographs which were taken expressly for the Journal;

And the Editor thanks Miss Keller's many friends who have lent

Him her letters to them and given him valuable information;

Especially Mrs. Laurence Hutton, who supplied him with her large

Collection of notes and anecdotes; Mr. John Hits, Superintendent

Of the Volta Bureau for the Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge

Relating to the Deaf; and Mrs. Sophia C. Hopkins, to who Miss

Sullivan wrote those illuminating letters, the extracts from

Which give a better idea of her methods with her pupil than

Anything heretofore published.

Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company have courteously permitted

The reprinting of Miss Keller's letter to Rd. Holmes, which

Appeared in "Over the Teacups," and one of Whittier's letters to

Miss Keller. Mr. S. T. Pickard, Whittier's literary executor,

Kindly sent the original of another letter from Miss Keller to

Whittier.

John Albert Macy.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 1, 1903.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editor's Preface

Part I. The Story of My Life Chapter I-XXIII

II. Introduction to Letters, Letters

III. A Supplementary Account of Helen Keller's Life and

Education

Chapter I. The Writing of the Book

II. Personality

III. Education

IV. Speech

V. Literary Style

Part I. The Story of My Life

Chapter I

It is with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my

Life. I have, as it were, a superstitious hesitation in lifting

The veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mist. The

task of writing an autobiography is a difficult one. When I try

to classify my earliest impressions, I find that fact and fancy

look alike across the years that link the past with the present.

The woman paints the child's experiences in her own fantasy. A

few impressions stand out vividly from the first years of my

life; but "the shadows of the prison-house are on the rest."

Besides, many of the joys and sorrows of childhood have lost

their poignancy; and many incidents of vital importance in my

early education have been forgotten in the excitement of great

discoveries. In order, therefore, not to be tedious I shall try

to present in a series of sketches only the episodes that seem to

me to be the most interesting and important.

I was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, a little town of

northern Alabama.

The family on my father's side is descended from Caspar Keller, a

native of Switzerland, who settled in Maryland. One of my Swiss

ancestors was the first teacher of the deaf in Zurich and wrote a

book on the subject of their education-rather a singular

coincidence; though it is true that there is no king who has not

had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a

king among his.

My grandfather, Caspar Keller's son, "entered" large tracts of

land in Alabama and finally settled there. I have been told that

once a year he went from Tuscumbia to Philadelphia on horseback

to purchase supplies for the plantation, and my aunt has in her

possession many of the letters to his family, which give charming

and vivid accounts of these trips.

My Grandmother Keller was a daughter of one of Lafayette's aides,

Alexander Moore, and granddaughter of Alexander Spotswood, an

early Colonial Governor of Virginia. She was also second cousin

to Robert E. Lee.

My father, Arthur H. Keller, was a captain in the Confederate

Army, and my mother, Kate Adams, was his second wife and many

years younger. Her grandfather, Benjamin Adams, married Susanna

E. Goodhue, and lived in Newbury, Massachusetts, for many years.

Their son, Charles Adams, was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts,

and moved to Helena, Arkansas. When the Civil War broke out, he

fought on the side of the South and became a brigadier-general.

He married Lucy Helen Everett, who belonged to the same family of

Everetts as Edward Everett and Dr. Edward Everett Hale. After the

war was over the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee.

I lived, up to the time of the illness that deprived me of my

sight and hearing, in a tiny house consisting of a large square

room and a small one, in which the servant slept. It is a custom

in the South to build a small house near the homestead as an

annex to be used on occasion. Such a house my father built after

the Civil War, and when he married my mother they went to live in

it. It was completely covered with vines, climbing roses and

honeysuckles. From the garden it looked like an arbour. The

little porch was hidden from view by a screen of yellow roses and

Southern smilax. It was the favourite haunt of humming-birds and

bees.

The Keller homestead, where the family lived, was a few steps

from our little rose-bower. It was called "Ivy Green" because the

house and the surrounding trees and fences were covered with

beautiful English ivy. Its old-fashioned garden was the paradise

of my childhood.

Even in the days before my teacher came, I used to feel along the

square stiff boxwood hedges, and, guided by the sense of smell

would find the first violets and lilies. There, too, after a fit

of temper, I went to find comfort and to hide my hot face in the

cool leaves and grass. What joy it was to lose myself in that

garden of flowers, to wander happily from spot to spot, until,

coming suddenly upon a beautiful vine, I recognized it by its

leaves and blossoms, and knew it was the vine which covered the

tumble-down summer-house at the farther end of the garden! Here,

also, were trailing clematis, drooping jessamine, and some rare

sweet flowers called butterfly lilies, because their fragile

petals resemble butterflies' wings. But the roses-they were

loveliest of all. Never have I found in the greenhouses of the

North such heart-satisfying roses as the climbing roses of my

southern home. They used to hang in long festoons from our porch,

filling the whole air with their fragrance, untainted by any

earthy smell; and in the early morning, washed in the dew, they

felt so soft, so pure, I could not help wondering if they did not

resemble the asphodels of God's garden.

The beginning of my life was simple and much like every other

little life. I came, I saw, I conquered, as the first baby in the

family always does. There was the usual amount of discussion as

to a name for me. The first baby in the family was not to be

lightly named, every one was emphatic about that. My father

suggested the name of Mildred Campbell, an ancestor whom he

highly esteemed, and he declined to take any further part in the

discussion. My mother solved the problem by giving it as her wish

that I should be called after her mother, whose maiden name was

Helen Everett. But in the excitement of carrying me to church my

father lost the name on the way, very naturally, since it was one

in which he had declined to have a part. When the minister asked

him for it, he just remembered that it had been decided to call

me after my grandmother, and he gave her name as Helen Adams.

I am told that while I was still in long dresses I showed many

signs of an eager, self-asserting disposition. Everything that I

saw other people do I insisted upon imitating. At six months I

could pipe out "How d'ye," and one day I attracted every one's

attention by saying "Tea, tea, tea" quite plainly. Even after my

illness I remembered one of the words I had learned in these

early months. It was the word "water," and I continued to make

some sound for that word after all other speech was lost. I

ceased making the sound "wah-wah" only when I learned to spell

the word.

They tell me I walked the day I was a year old. My mother had

just taken me out of the bath-tub and was holding me in her lap,

when I was suddenly attracted by the flickering shadows of leaves

that danced in the sunlight on the smooth floor. I slipped from

my mother's lap and almost ran toward them. The impulse gone, I

fell down and cried for her to take me up in her arms.

These happy days did not last long. One brief spring, musical

with the song of robin and mocking-bird, one summer rich in fruit

and roses, one autumn of gold and crimson sped by and left their

gifts at the feet of an eager, delighted child. Then, in the

dreary month of February, came the illness which closed my eyes

and ears and plunged me into the unconsciousness of a new-born

baby. They called it acute congestion of the stomach and brain.

The doctor thought I could not live. Early one morning, however,

the fever left me as suddenly and mysteriously as it had come.

There was great rejoicing in the family that morning, but no one,

not even the doctor, knew that I should never see or hear again.

I fancy I still have confused recollections of that illness. I

especially remember the tenderness with which my mother tried to

soothe me in my waling hours of fret and pain, and the agony and

bewilderment with which I awoke after a tossing half sleep, and

turned my eyes, so dry and hot, to the wall away from the

once-loved light, which came to me dim and yet more dim each day.

But, except for these fleeting memories, if, indeed, they be

memories, it all seems very unreal, like a nightmare. Gradually I

got used to the silence and darkness that surrounded me and

forgot that it had ever been different, until she came-my

teacher-who was to set my spirit free. But during the first

nineteen months of my life I had caught glimpses of broad, green

fields, a luminous sky, trees and flowers which the darkness that

followed could not wholly blot out. If we have once seen, "the

day is ours, and what the day has shown."

Chapter II

I cannot recall what happened during the first months after my

illness. I only know that I sat in my mother's lap or clung to

her dress as she went about her household duties. My hands felt

every object and observed every motion, and in this way I learned

to know many things. Soon I felt the need of some communication

with others and began to make crude signs. A shake of the head

meant "No" and a nod, "Yes," a pull meant "Come" and a push,

"Go." Was it bread that I wanted? Then I would imitate the acts

of cutting the slices and buttering them. If I wanted my mother

to make ice-cream for dinner I made the sign for working the

freezer and shivered, indicating cold. My mother, moreover,

succeeded in making me understand a good deal. I always knew when

she wished me to bring her something, and I would run upstairs or

anywhere else she indicated. Indeed, I owe to her loving wisdom

all that was bright and good in my long night.

I understood a good deal of what was going on about me. At five I

learned to fold and put away the clean clothes when they were

brought in from the laundry, and I distinguished my own from the

rest. I knew by the way my mother and aunt dressed when they were

going out, and I invariably begged to go with them. I was always

sent for when there was company, and when the guests took their

leave, I waved my hand to them, I think with a vague remembrance

of the meaning of the gesture. One day some gentlemen called on

my mother, and I felt the shutting of the front door and other

sounds that indicated their arrival. On a sudden thought I ran

upstairs before any one could stop me, to put on my idea of a

company dress. Standing before the mirror, as I had seen others

do, I anointed mine head with oil and covered my face thickly

with powder. Then I pinned a veil over my head so that it covered

my face and fell in folds down to my shoulders, and tied an

enormous bustle round my small waist, so that it dangled behind,

almost meeting the hem of my skirt. Thus attired I went down to

help entertain the company.

I do not remember when I first realized that I was different from

other people; but I knew it before my teacher came to me. I had

noticed that my mother and my friends did not use signs as I did

when they wanted anything done, but talked with their mouths.

Sometimes I stood between two persons who were conversing and

touched their lips. I could not understand, and was vexed. I

moved my lips and gesticulated frantically without result. This

made me so angry at times that I kicked and screamed until I was

exhausted.

I think I knew when I was naughty, for I knew that it hurt Ella,

my nurse, to kick her, and when my fit of temper was over I had a

feeling akin to regret. But I cannot remember any instance in

which this feeling prevented me from repeating the naughtiness

when I failed to get what I wanted.

In those days a little coloured girl, Martha Washington, the

child of our cook, and Belle, an old setter, and a great hunter

in her day, were my constant companions. Martha Washington

understood my signs, and I seldom had any difficulty in making

her do just as I wished. It pleased me to domineer over her, and

she generally submitted to my tyranny rather than risk a

hand-to-hand encounter. I was strong, active, indifferent to

consequences. I knew my own mind well enough and always had my

own way, even if I had to fight tooth and nail for it. We spent a

great deal of time in the kitchen, kneading dough balls, helping

make ice-cream, grinding coffee, quarreling over the cake-bowl,

and feeding the hens and turkeys that swarmed about the kitchen

steps. Many of them were so tame that they would eat from my hand

and let me feel them. One big gobbler snatched a tomato from me

one day and ran away with it. Inspired, perhaps, by Master

Gobbler's success, we carried off to the woodpile a cake which

the cook had just frosted, and ate every bit of it. I was quite

ill afterward, and I wonder if retribution also overtook the

turkey.

The guinea-fowl likes to hide her nest in out-of-the-way places,

and it was one of my greatest delights to hunt for the eggs in

the long grass. I could not tell Martha Washington when I wanted

to go egg-hunting, but I would double my hands and put them on

the ground, which meant something round in the grass, and Martha

always understood. When we were fortunate enough to find a nest I

never allowed her to carry the eggs home, making her understand

by emphatic signs that she might fall and break them.

The sheds where the corn was stored, the stable where the horses

were kept, and the yard where the cows were milked morning and

evening were unfailing sources of interest to Martha and me. The

milkers would let me keep my hands on the cows while they milked,

and I often got well switched by the cow for my curiosity.

The making ready for Christmas was always a delight to me. Of

course I did not know what it was all about, but I enjoyed the

pleasant odours that filled the house and the tidbits that were

given to Martha Washington and me to keep us quiet. We were sadly

in the way, but that did not interfere with our pleasure in the

least. They allowed us to grind the spices, pick over the raisins

and lick the stirring spoons. I hung my stocking because the

others did; I cannot remember, however, that the ceremony

interested me especially, nor did my curiosity cause me to wake

before daylight to look for my gifts.

Martha Washington had as great a love of mischief as I. Two

little children were seated on the veranda steps one hot July

afternoon. One was black as ebony, with little bunches of fuzzy

hair tied with shoestrings sticking out all over her head like

corkscrews. The other was white, with long golden curls. One

child was six years old, the other two or three years older. The

younger child was blind-that was I-and the other was Martha

Washington. We were busy cutting out paper dolls; but we soon

wearied of this amusement, and after cutting up our shoestrings

and clipping all the leaves off the honeysuckle that were within

reach, I turned my attention to Martha's corkscrews. She objected

at first, but finally submitted. Thinking that turn and turn

about is fair play, she seized the scissors and cut off one of my

curls, and would have cut them all off but for my mother's timely

interference.

Belle, our dog, my other companion, was old and lazy and liked to

sleep by the open fire rather than to romp with me. I tried hard

to teach her my sign language, but she was dull and inattentive.

She sometimes started and quivered with excitement, then she

became perfectly rigid, as dogs do when they point a bird. I did

not then know why Belle acted in this way; but I knew she was not

doing as I wished. This vexed me and the lesson always ended in a

one-sided boxing match. Belle would get up, stretch herself

lazily, give one or two contemptuous sniffs, go to the opposite

side of the hearth and lie down again, and I, wearied and

disappointed, went off in search of Martha.

Many incidents of those early years are fixed in my memory,

isolated, but clear and distinct, making the sense of that

silent, aimless, dayless life all the more intense.

One day I happened to spill water on my apron, and I spread it

out to dry before the fire which was flickering on the

sitting-room hearth. The apron did not dry quickly enough to suit

me, so I drew nearer and threw it right over the hot ashes. The

fire leaped into life; the flames encircled me so that in a

moment my clothes were blazing. I made a terrified noise that

brought Viny, my old nurse, to the rescue. Throwing a blanket

over me, she almost suffocated me, but she put out the fire.

Except for my hands and hair I was not badly burned.

About this time I found out the use of a key. One morning I

locked my mother up in the pantry, where she was obliged to

remain three hours, as the servants were in a detached part of

the house. She kept pounding on the door, while I sat outside on

the porch steps and laughed with glee as I felt the jar of the

pounding. This most naughty prank of mine convinced my parents

that I must be taught as soon as possible. After my teacher, Miss

Sullivan, came to me, I sought an early opportunity to lock her

in her room. I went upstairs with something which my mother made

me understand I was to give to Miss Sullivan; but no sooner had I

given it to her than I slammed the door to, locked it, and hid

the key under the wardrobe in the hall. I could not be induced to

tell where the key was. My father was obliged to get a ladder and

take Miss Sullivan out through the window-much to my delight.

Months after I produced the key.

When I was about five years old we moved from the little

vine-covered house to a large new one. The family consisted of my

father and mother, two older half-brothers, and, afterward, a

little sister, Mildred. My earliest distinct recollection of my

father is making my way through great drifts of newspapers to his

side and finding him alone, holding a sheet of paper before his

face. I was greatly puzzled to know what he was doing. I imitated

this action, even wearing his spectacles, thinking they might

help solve the mystery. But I did not find out the secret for

several years. Then I learned what those papers were, and that my

father edited one of them.

My father was most loving and indulgent, devoted to his home,

seldom leaving us, except in the hunting season. He was a great

hunter, I have been told, and a celebrated shot. Next to his

family he loved his dogs and gun. His hospitality was great,

almost to a fault, and he seldom came home without bringing a

guest. His special pride was the big garden where, it was said,

he raised the finest watermelons and strawberries in the county;

and to me he brought the first ripe grapes and the choicest

berries. I remember his caressing touch as he led me from tree to

tree, from vine to vine, and his eager delight in whatever

pleased me.

He was a famous story-teller; after I had acquired language he

used to spell clumsily into my hand his cleverest anecdotes, and

nothing pleased him more than to have me repeat them at an

opportune moment.

I was in the North, enjoying the last beautiful days of the

summer of 1896, when I heard the news of my father's death. He

had had a short illness, there had been a brief time of acute

suffering, then all was over. This was my first great sorrow-my

first personal experience with death.

How shall I write of my mother? She is so near to me that it

almost seems indelicate to speak of her.

For a long time I regarded my little sister as an intruder. I

knew that I had ceased to be my mother's only darling, and the

thought filled me with jealousy. She sat in my mother's lap

constantly, where I used to sit, and seemed to take up all her

care and time. One day something happened which seemed to me to

be adding insult to injury.

At that time I had a much-petted, much-abused doll, which I

afterward named Nancy. She was, alas, the helpless victim of my

outbursts of temper and of affection, so that she became much the

worse for wear. I had dolls which talked, and cried, and opened

and shut their eyes; yet I never loved one of them as I loved

poor Nancy. She had a cradle, and I often spent an hour or more

rocking her. I guarded both doll and cradle with the most jealous

care; but once I discovered my little sister sleeping peacefully

in the cradle. At this presumption on the part of one to whom as

yet no tie of love bound me I grew angry. I rushed upon the

cradle and over-turned it, and the baby might have been killed

had my mother not caught her as she fell. Thus it is that when we

walk in the valley of twofold solitude we know little of the

tender affections that grow out of endearing words and actions

and companionship. But afterward, when I was restored to my human

heritage, Mildred and I grew into each other's hearts, so that we

were content to go hand-in-hand wherever caprice led us, although

she could not understand my finger language, nor I her childish

prattle.

Chapter III

Meanwhile the desire to express myself grew. The few signs I used

became less and less adequate, and my failures to make myself

understood were invariably followed by outbursts of passion. I

felt as if invisible hands were holding me, and I made frantic

efforts to free myself. I struggled-not that struggling helped

matters, but the spirit of resistance was strong within me; I

generally broke down in tears and physical exhaustion. If my

mother happened to be near I crept into her arms, too miserable

even to remember the cause of the tempest. After awhile the need

of some means of communication became so urgent that these

outbursts occurred daily, sometimes hourly.

My parents were deeply grieved and perplexed. We lived a long way

from any school for the blind or the deaf, and it seemed unlikely

that any one would come to such an out-of-the-way place as

Tuscumbia to teach a child who was both deaf and blind. Indeed,

my friends and relatives sometimes doubted whether I could be

taught. My mother's only ray of hope came from Dickens's

"American Notes." She had read his account of Laura Bridgman, and

remembered vaguely that she was deaf and blind, yet had been

educated. But she also remembered with a hopeless pang that Dr.

Howe, who had discovered the way to teach the deaf and blind, had

been dead many years. His methods had probably died with him; and

if they had not, how was a little girl in a far-off town in

Alabama to receive the benefit of them?

When I was about six years old, my father heard of an eminent

oculist in Baltimore, who had been successful in many cases that

had seemed hopeless. My parents at once determined to take me to

Baltimore to see if anything could be done for my eyes.

The journey, which I remember well was very pleasant. I made

friends with many people on the train. One lady gave me a box of

shells. My father made holes in these so that I could string

them, and for a long time they kept me happy and contented. The

conductor, too, was kind. Often when he went his rounds I clung

to his coat tails while he collected and punched the tickets. His

punch, with which he let me play, was a delightful toy. Curled up

in a corner of the seat I amused myself for hours making funny

little holes in bits of cardboard.

My aunt made me a big doll out of towels. It was the most comical

shapeless thing, this improvised doll, with no nose, mouth, ears

or eyes-nothing that even the imagination of a child could

convert into a face. Curiously enough, the absence of eyes struck

me more than all the other defects put together. I pointed this

out to everybody with provoking persistency, but no one seemed

equal to the task of providing the doll with eyes. A bright idea,

however, shot into my mind, and the problem was solved. I tumbled

off the seat and searched under it until I found my aunt's cape,

which was trimmed with large beads. I pulled two beads off and

indicated to her that I wanted her to sew them on my doll. She

raised my hand to her eyes in a questioning way, and I nodded

energetically. The beads were sewed in the right place and I

could not contain myself for joy; but immediately I lost all

interest in the doll. During the whole trip I did not have one

fit of temper, there were so many things to keep my mind and

fingers busy.

When we arrived in Baltimore, Dr. Chisholm received us kindly:

but he could do nothing. He said, however, that I could be

educated, and advised my father to consult Dr. Alexander Graham

Bell of Washington, who would be able to give him information

about schools and teachers of deaf or blind children. Acting on

the doctor's advice, we went immediately to Washington to see Dr.

Bell, my father with a sad heart and many misgivings, I wholly

unconscious of his anguish, finding pleasure in the excitement of

moving from place to place. Child as I was, I at once felt the

tenderness and sympathy which endeared Dr. Bell to so many

hearts, as his wonderful achievements enlist their admiration. He

held me on his knee while I examined his watch, and he made it

strike for me. He understood my signs, and I knew it and loved

him at once. But I did not dream that that interview would be the

door through which I should pass from darkness into light, from

isolation to friendship, companionship, knowledge, love.

Dr. Bell advised my father to write to Mr. Anagnos, director of

the Perkins Institution in Boston, the scene of Dr. Howe's great

labours for the blind, and ask him if he had a teacher competent

to begin my education. This my father did at once, and in a few

weeks there came a kind letter from Mr. Anagnos with the

comforting assurance that a teacher had been found. This was in

the summer of 1886. But Miss Sullivan did not arrive until the

following March.

Thus I came up out of Egypt and stood before Sinai, and a power

divine touched my spirit and gave it sight, so that I beheld many

wonders. And from the sacred mountain I heard a voice which said,

"Knowledge is love and light and vision."

Chapter IV

The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on

which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am

filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrasts

between the two lives which it connects. It was the third of

March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old.

On the afternoon of that eventful day, I stood on the porch,

dumb, expectant. I guessed vaguely from my mother's signs and

from the hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual

was about to happen, so I went to the door and waited on the

steps. The afternoon sun penetrated the mass of honeysuckle that

covered the porch, and fell on my upturned face. My fingers

lingered almost unconsciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms

which had just come forth to greet the sweet southern spring. I

did not know what the future held of marvel or surprise for me.

Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me continually for weeks and

a deep languor had succeeded this passionate struggle.

Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a

tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense

and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and

sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to

happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I

was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing

how near the harbour was. "Light! give me light!" was the

wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in

that very hour.

I felt approaching footsteps, I stretched out my hand as I

supposed to my mother. Some one took it, and I was caught up and

held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things

to me, and, more than all things else, to love me.

The morning after my teacher came she led me into her room and

gave me a doll. The little blind children at the Perkins

Institution had sent it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it; but I

did not know this until afterward. When I had played with it a

little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word

"d-o-l-l." I was at once interested in this finger play and tried

to imitate it. When I finally succeeded in making the letters

correctly I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride. Running

downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letters

for doll. I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that

words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like

imitation. In the days that followed I learned to spell in this

uncomprehending way a great many words, among them pin, hat, cup

and a few verbs like sit, stand and walk. But my teacher had been

with me several weeks before I understood that everything has a

name.

One day, while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put

my big rag doll into my lap also, spelled "d-o-l-l" and tried to

make me understand that "d-o-l-l" applied to both. Earlier in the

day we had had a tussle over the words "m-u-g" and "w-a-t-e-r."

Miss Sullivan had tried to impress it upon me that "m-u-g" is mug

and that "w-a-t-e-r" is water, but I persisted in confounding the

two. In despair she had dropped the subject for the time, only to

renew it at the first opportunity. I became impatient at her

repeated attempts and, seizing the new doll, I dashed it upon the

floor. I was keenly delighted when I felt the fragments of the

broken doll at my feet. Neither sorrow nor regret followed my

passionate outburst. I had not loved the doll. In the still, dark

world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment or

tenderness. I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of

the hearth, and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of

my discomfort was removed. She brought me my hat, and I knew I

was going out into the warm sunshine. This thought, if a wordless

sensation may be called a thought, made me hop and skip with

pleasure.

We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the

fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Some one

was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout.

As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the

other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still,

my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers.

Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something

forgotten-a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery

of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r"

meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand.

That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set

it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that

could in time be swept away.

I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and

each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the

house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life.

That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight

that had come to me. On entering the door I remembered the doll I

had broken. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces.

I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with

tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I

felt repentance and sorrow.

I learned a great many new words that day. I do not remember what

they all were; but I do know that mother, father, sister, teacher

were among them-words that were to make the world blossom for

me, "like Aaron's rod, with flowers." It would have been

difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib

at the close of that eventful day and lived over the joys it had

brought me, and for the first time longed for a new day to come.

Chapter V

I recall many incidents of the summer of 1887 that followed my

soul's sudden awakening. I did nothing but explore with my hands

and learn the name of every object that I touched; and the more I

handled things and learned their names and uses, the more joyous

and confident grew my sense of kinship with the rest of the

world.

When the time of daisies and buttercups came Miss Sullivan took

me by the hand across the fields, where men were preparing the

earth for the seed, to the banks of the Tennessee River, and

there, sitting on the warm grass, I had my first lessons in the

beneficence of nature. I learned how the sun and the rain make to

grow out of the ground every tree that is pleasant to the sight

and good for food, how birds build their nests and live and

thrive from land to land, how the squirrel, the deer, the lion

and every other creature finds food and shelter. As my knowledge

of things grew I felt more and more the delight of the world I

was in. Long before I learned to do a sum in arithmetic or

describe the shape of the earth, Miss Sullivan had taught me to

find beauty in the fragrant woods, in every blade of grass, and

in the curves and dimples of my baby sister's hand. She linked my

earliest thoughts with nature, and made me feel that "birds and

flowers and I were happy peers."

But about this time I had an experience which taught me that

nature is not always kind. One day my teacher and I were

returning from a long ramble. The morning had been fine, but it

was growing warm and sultry when at last we turned our faces

homeward. Two or three times we stopped to rest under a tree by

the wayside. Our last halt was under a wild cherry tree a short

distance from the house. The shade was grateful, and the tree was

so easy to climb that with my teacher's assistance I was able to

scramble to a seat in the branches. It was so cool up in the tree

that Miss Sullivan proposed that we have our luncheon there. I

promised to keep still while she went to the house to fetch it.

Suddenly a change passed over the tree. All the sun's warmth left

the air. I knew the sky was black, because all the heat, which

meant light to me, had died out of the atmosphere. A strange

odour came up from the earth. I knew it, it was the odour that

always precedes a thunderstorm, and a nameless fear clutched at

my heart. I felt absolutely alone, cut off from my friends and

the firm earth. The immense, the unknown, enfolded me. I remained

still and expectant; a chilling terror crept over me. I longed

for my teacher's return; but above all things I wanted to get

down from that tree.

There was a moment of sinister silence, then a multitudinous

stirring of the leaves. A shiver ran through the tree, and the

wind sent forth a blast that would have knocked me off had I not

clung to the branch with might and main. The tree swayed and

strained. The small twigs snapped and fell about me in showers. A

wild impulse to jump seized me, but terror held me fast. I

crouched down in the fork of the tree. The branches lashed about

me. I felt the intermittent jarring that came now and then, as if

something heavy had fallen and the shock had traveled up till it

reached the limb I sat on. It worked my suspense up to the

highest point, and just as I was thinking the tree and I should

fall together, my teacher seized my hand and helped me down. I

clung to her, trembling with joy to feel the earth under my feet

once more. I had learned a new lesson-that nature "wages open

war against her children, and under softest touch hides

treacherous claws."

After this experience it was a long time before I climbed another

tree. The mere thought filled me with terror. It was the sweet

allurement of the mimosa tree in full bloom that finally overcame

my fears. One beautiful spring morning when I was alone in the

summer-house, reading, I became aware of a wonderful subtle

fragrance in the air. I started up and instinctively stretched

out my hands. It seemed as if the spirit of spring had passed

through the summer-house. "What is it?" I asked, and the next

minute I recognized the odour of the mimosa blossoms. I felt my

way to the end of the garden, knowing that the mimosa tree was

near the fence, at the turn of the path. Yes, there it was, all

quivering in the warm sunshine, its blossom-laden branches almost

touching the long grass. Was there ever anything so exquisitely

beautiful in the world before! Its delicate blossoms shrank from

the slightest earthly touch; it seemed as if a tree of paradise

had been transplanted to earth. I made my way through a shower of

petals to the great trunk and for one minute stood irresolute;

then, putting my foot in the broad space between the forked

branches, I pulled myself up into the tree. I had some difficulty

in holding on, for the branches were very large and the bark hurt

my hands. But I had a delicious sense that I was doing something

unusual and wonderful so I kept on climbing higher and higher,

until I reached a little seat which somebody had built there so

long ago that it had grown part of the tree itself. I sat there

for a long, long time, feeling like a fairy on a rosy cloud.

After that I spent many happy hours in my tree of paradise,

thinking fair thoughts and dreaming bright dreams.

Chapter VI

I had now the key to all language, and I was eager to learn to

use it. Children who hear acquire language without any particular

effort; the words that fall from others' lips they catch on the

wing, as it were, delightedly, while the little deaf child must

trap them by a slow and often painful process. But whatever the

process, the result is wonderful. Gradually from naming an object

we advance step by step until we have traversed the vast distance

between our first stammered syllable and the sweep of thought in

a line of Shakespeare.

At first, when my teacher told me about a new thing I asked very

few questions. My ideas were vague, and my vocabulary was

inadequate; but as my knowledge of things grew, and I learned

more and more words, my field of inquiry broadened, and I would

return again and again to the same subject, eager for further

information. Sometimes a new word revived an image that some

earlier experience had engraved on my brain.

I remember the morning that I first asked the meaning of the

word, "love." This was before I knew many words. I had found a

few early violets in the garden and brought them to my teacher.

She tried to kiss me: but at that time I did not like to have any

one kiss me except my mother. Miss Sullivan put her arm gently

round me and spelled into my hand, "I love Helen."

"What is love?" I asked.

She drew me closer to her and said, "It is here," pointing to my

heart, whose beats I was conscious of for the first time. Her

words puzzled me very much because I did not then understand

anything unless I touched it.

I smelt the violets in her hand and asked, half in words, half in

signs, a question which meant, "Is love the sweetness of

flowers?"

"No," said my teacher.

Again I thought. The warm sun was shining on us.

"Is this not love?" I asked, pointing in the direction from which

the heat came. "Is this not love?"

It seemed to me that there could be nothing more beautiful than

the sun, whose warmth makes all things grow. But Miss Sullivan

shook her head, and I was greatly puzzled and disappointed. I

thought it strange that my teacher could not show me love.

A day or two afterward I was stringing beads of different sizes

in symmetrical groups-two large beads, three small ones, and so

on. I had made many mistakes, and Miss Sullivan had pointed them

out again and again with gentle patience. Finally I noticed a

very obvious error in the sequence and for an instant I

concentrated my attention on the lesson and tried to think how I

should have arranged the beads. Miss Sullivan touched my forehead

and spelled with decided emphasis, "Think."

In a flash I knew that the word was the name of the process that

was going on in my head. This was my first conscious perception

of an abstract idea.

For a long time I was still-I was not thinking of the beads in

my lap, but trying to find a meaning for "love" in the light of

this new idea. The sun had been under a cloud all day, and there

had been brief showers; but suddenly the sun broke forth in all

its southern splendour.

Again I asked my teacher, "Is this not love?"

"Love is something like the clouds that were in the sky before

the sun came out," she replied. Then in simpler words than these,

which at that time I could not have understood, she explained:

"You cannot touch the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and

know how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it

after a hot day. You cannot touch love either; but you feel the

sweetness that it pours into everything. Without love you would

not be happy or want to play."

The beautiful truth burst upon my mind-I felt that there were

invisible lines stretched between my spirit and the spirits of

others.

From the beginning of my education Miss Sullivan made it a

practice to speak to me as she would speak to any hearing child;

the only difference was that she spelled the sentences into my

hand instead of speaking them. If I did not know the words and

idioms necessary to express my thoughts she supplied them, even

suggesting conversation when I was unable to keep up my end of

the dialogue.

This process was continued for several years; for the deaf child

does not learn in a month, or even in two or three years, the

numberless idioms and expressions used in the simplest daily

intercourse. The little hearing child learns these from constant

repetition and imitation. The conversation he hears in his home

stimulates his mind and suggests topics and calls forth the

spontaneous expression of his own thoughts. This natural exchange

of ideas is denied to the deaf child. My teacher, realizing this,

determined to supply the kinds of stimulus I lacked. This she did

by repeating to me as far as possible, verbatim, what she heard,

and by showing me how I could take part in the conversation. But

it was a long time before I ventured to take the initiative, and

still longer before I could find something appropriate to say at

the right time.

The deaf and the blind find it very difficult to acquire the

amenities of conversation. How much more this difficulty must be

augmented in the case of those who are both deaf and blind! They

cannot distinguish the tone of the voice or, without assistance,

go up and down the gamut of tones that give significance to

words; nor can they watch the expression of the speaker's face,

and a look is often the very soul of what one says.

Chapter VII

The next important step in my education was learning to read.

As soon as I could spell a few words my teacher gave me slips of

cardboard on which were printed words in raised letters. I

quickly learned that each printed word stood for an object, an

act, or a quality. I had a frame in which I could arrange the

words in little sentences; but before I ever put sentences in the

frame I used to make them in objects. I found the slips of paper

which represented, for example, "doll," "is," "on," "bed" and

placed each name on its object; then I put my doll on the bed

with the words is, on, bed arranged beside the doll, thus making

a sentence of the words, and at the same time carrying out the

idea of the sentence with the things themselves.

One day, Miss Sullivan tells me, I pinned the word girl on my

pinafore and stood in the wardrobe. On the shelf I arranged the

words, is, in, wardrobe. Nothing delighted me so much as this

game. My teacher and I played it for hours at a time. Often

everything in the room was arranged in object sentences.

From the printed slip it was but a step to the printed book. I

took my "Reader for Beginners" and hunted for the words I knew;

when I found them my joy was like that of a game of

hide-and-seek. Thus I began to read. Of the time when I began to

read connected stories I shall speak later.

For a long time I had no regular lessons. Even when I studied

most earnestly it seemed more like play than work. Everything

Miss Sullivan taught me she illustrated by a beautiful story or a

poem. Whenever anything delighted or interested me she talked it

over with me just as if she were a little girl herself. What many

children think of with dread, as a painful plodding through

grammar, hard sums and harder definitions, is to-day one of my

most precious memories.

I cannot explain the peculiar sympathy Miss Sullivan had with my

pleasures and desires. Perhaps it was the result of long

association with the blind. Added to this she had a wonderful

faculty for description. She went quickly over uninteresting

details, and never nagged me with questions to see if I

remembered the day-before-yesterday's lesson. She introduced dry

technicalities of science little by little, making every subject

so real that I could not help remembering what she taught.

We read and studied out of doors, preferring the sunlit woods to

the house. All my early lessons have in them the breath of the

woods-the fine, resinous odour of pine needles, blended with the

perfume of wild grapes. Seated in the gracious shade of a wild

tulip tree, I learned to think that everything has a lesson and a

suggestion. "The loveliness of things taught me all their use."

Indeed, everything that could hum, or buzz, or sing, or bloom had

a part in my education-noisy-throated frogs, katydids and

crickets held in my hand until forgetting their embarrassment,

they trilled their reedy note, little downy chickens and

wildflowers, the dogwood blossoms, meadow-violets and budding

fruit trees. I felt the bursting cotton-bolls and fingered their

soft fiber and fuzzy seeds; I felt the low soughing of the wind

through the cornstalks, the silky rustling of the long leaves,

and the indignant snort of my pony, as we caught him in the

pasture and put the bit in his mouth-ah me! how well I remember

the spicy, clovery smell of his breath!

Sometimes I rose at dawn and stole into the garden while the

heavy dew lay on the grass and flowers. Few know what joy it is

to feel the roses pressing softly into the hand, or the beautiful

motion of the lilies as they sway in the morning breeze.

Sometimes I caught an insect in the flower I was plucking, and I

felt the faint noise of a pair of wings rubbed together in a

sudden terror, as the little creature became aware of a pressure

from without.

Another favourite haunt of mine was the orchard, where the fruit

ripened early in July. The large, downy peaches would reach

themselves into my hand, and as the joyous breezes flew about the

trees the apples tumbled at my feet. Oh, the delight with which I

gathered up the fruit in my pinafore, pressed my face against the

smooth cheeks of the apples, still warm from the sun, and skipped

back to the house!

Our favourite walk was to Keller's Landing, an old tumbledown

lumber-wharf on the Tennessee River, used during the Civil War to

land soldiers. There we spent many happy hours and played at

learning geography. I built dams of pebbles, made islands and

lakes, and dug river-beds, all for fun, and never dreamed that I

was learning a lesson. I listened with increasing wonder to Miss

Sullivan's descriptions of the great round world with its burning

mountains, buried cities, moving rivers of ice, and many other

things as strange. She made raised maps in clay, so that I could

feel the mountain ridges and valleys, and follow with my fingers

the devious course of rivers. I liked this, too; but the division

of the earth into zones and poles confused and teased my mind.

The illustrative strings and the orange stick representing the

poles seemed so real that even to this day the mere mention of

temperate zone suggests a series of twine circles; and I believe

that if any one should set about it he could convince me that

white bears actually climb the North Pole.

Arithmetic seems to have been the only study I did not like. From

the first I was not interested in the science of numbers. Miss

Sullivan tried to teach me to count by stringing beads in groups,

and by arranging kintergarten straws I learned to add and

subtract. I never had patience to arrange more than five or six

groups at a time. When I had accomplished this my conscience was

at rest for the day, and I went out quickly to find my playmates.

In this same leisurely manner I studied zoology and botany.

Once a gentleman, whose name I have forgotten, sent me a

collection of fossils-tiny mollusk shells beautifully marked,

and bits of sandstone with the print of birds' claws, and a

lovely fern in bas-relief. These were the keys which unlocked the

treasures of the antediluvian world for me. With trembling

fingers I listened to Miss Sullivan's descriptions of the

terrible beasts, with uncouth, unpronounceable names, which once

went tramping through the primeval forests, tearing down the

branches of gigantic trees for food, and died in the dismal

swamps of an unknown age. For a long time these strange creatures

haunted my dreams, and this gloomy period formed a somber

background to the joyous Now, filled with sunshine and roses and

echoing with the gentle beat of my pony's hoof.

Another time a beautiful shell was given me, and with a child's

surprise and delight I learned how a tiny mollusk had built the

lustrous coil for his dwelling place, and how on still nights,

when there is no breeze stirring the waves, the Nautilus sails on

the blue waters of the Indian Ocean in his "ship of pearl." After

I had learned a great many interesting things about the life and

habits of the children of the sea-how in the midst of dashing

waves the little polyps build the beautiful coral isles of the

Pacific, and the foraminifera have made the chalk-hills of many a

land-my teacher read me "The Chambered Nautilus," and showed me

that the shell-building process of the mollusks is symbolical of

the development of the mind. Just as the wonder-working mantle of

the Nautilus changes the material it absorbs from the water and

makes it a part of itself, so the bits of knowledge one gathers

undergo a similar change and become pearls of thought.

Again, it was the growth of a plant that furnished the text for a

lesson. We bought a lily and set it in a sunny window. Very soon

the green, pointed buds showed signs of opening. The slender,

fingerlike leaves on the outside opened slowly, reluctant, I

thought, to reveal the loveliness they hid; once having made a

start, however, the opening process went on rapidly, but in order

and systematically. There was always one bud larger and more

beautiful than the rest, which pushed her outer, covering back

with more pomp, as if the beauty in soft, silky robes knew that

she was the lily-queen by right divine, while her more timid

sisters doffed their green hoods shyly, until the whole plant was

one nodding bough of loveliness and fragrance.

Once there were eleven tadpoles in a glass globe set in a window

full of plants. I remember the eagerness with which I made

discoveries about them. It was great fun to plunge my hand into

the bowl and feel the tadpoles frisk about, and to let them slip

and slide between my fingers. One day a more ambitious fellow

leaped beyond the edge of the bowl and fell on the floor, where I

found him to all appearance more dead than alive. The only sign

of life was a slight wriggling of his tail. But no sooner had he

returned to his element than he darted to the bottom, swimming

round and round in joyous activity. He had made his leap, he had

seen the great world, and was content to stay in his pretty glass

house under the big fuchsia tree until he attained the dignity of

froghood. Then he went to live in the leafy pool at the end of

the garden, where he made the summer nights musical with his

quaint love-song.

Thus I learned from life itself. At the beginning I was only a

little mass of possibilities. It was my teacher who unfolded and

developed them. When she came, everything about me breathed of

love and joy and was full of meaning. She has never since let

pass an opportunity to point out the beauty that is in

everything, nor has she ceased trying in thought and action and

example to make my life sweet and useful.

It was my teacher's genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact

which made the first years of my education so beautiful. It was

because she seized the right moment to impart knowledge that made

it so pleasant and acceptable to me. She realized that a child's

mind is like a shallow brook which ripples and dances merrily

over the stony course of its education and reflects here a

flower, there a bush, yonder a fleecy cloud; and she attempted to

guide my mind on its way, knowing that like a brook it should be

fed by mountain streams and hidden springs, until it broadened

out into a deep river, capable of reflecting in its placid

surface, billowy hills, the luminous shadows of trees and the

blue heavens, as well as the sweet face of a little flower.

Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, but not every

teacher can make him learn. He will not work joyously unless he

feels that liberty is his, whether he is busy or at rest; he must

feel the flush of victory and the heart-sinking of disappointment

before he takes with a will the tasks distasteful to him and

resolves to dance his way bravely through a dull routine of

textbooks.

My teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of myself apart

from her. How much of my delight in all beautiful things is

innate, and how much is due to her influence, I can never tell. I

feel that her being is inseparable from my own, and that the

footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best of me belongs to

her-there is not a talent, or an aspiration or a joy in me that

has not been awakened by her loving touch.

Chapter VIII

The first Christmas after Miss Sullivan came to Tuscumbia was a

great event. Every one in the family prepared surprises for me,

but what pleased me most, Miss Sullivan and I prepared surprises

for everybody else. The mystery that surrounded the gifts was my

greatest delight and amusement. My friends did all they could to

excite my curiosity by hints and half-spelled sentences which

they pretended to break off in the nick of time. Miss Sullivan

and I kept up a game of guessing which taught me more about the

use of language than any set lessons could have done. Every

evening, seated round a glowing wood fire, we played our guessing

game, which grew more and more exciting as Christmas approached.

On Christmas Eve the Tuscumbia schoolchildren had their tree, to

which they invited me. In the centre of the schoolroom stood a

beautiful tree ablaze and shimmering in the soft light, its

branches loaded with strange, wonderful fruit. It was a moment of

supreme happiness. I danced and capered round the tree in an

ecstasy. When I learned that there was a gift for each child, I

was delighted, and the kind people who had prepared the tree

permitted me to hand the presents to the children. In the

pleasure of doing this, I did not stop to look at my own gifts;

but when I was ready for them, my impatience for the real

Christmas to begin almost got beyond control. I knew the gifts I

already had were not those of which friends had thrown out such

tantalizing hints, and my teacher said the presents I was to have

would be even nicer than these. I was persuaded, however, to

content myself with the gifts from the tree and leave the others

until morning.

That night, after I had hung my stocking, I lay awake a long

time, pretending to be asleep and keeping alert to see what Santa

Claus would do when he came. At last I fell asleep with a new

doll and a white bear in my arms. Next morning it was I who waked

the whole family with my first "Merry Christmas!" I found

surprises, not in the stocking only, but on the table, on all the

chairs, at the door, on the very window-sill; indeed, I could

hardly walk without stumbling on a bit of Christmas wrapped up in

tissue paper. But when my teacher presented me with a canary, my

cup of happiness overflowed.

Little Tim was so tame that he would hop on my finger and eat

candied cherries out of my hand. Miss Sullivan taught me to take

all the care of my new pet. Every morning after breakfast I

prepared his bath, made his cage clean and sweet, filled his cups

with fresh seed and water from the well-house, and hung a spray

of chickweed in his swing.

One morning I left the cage on the window-seat while I went to

fetch water for his bath. When I returned I felt a big cat brush

past me as I opened the door. At first I did not realize what had

happened; but when I put my hand in the cage and Tim's pretty

wings did not meet my touch or his small pointed claws take hold

of my finger, I knew that I should never see my sweet little

singer again.

Chapter IX

The next important event in my life was my visit to Boston, in

May, 1888. As if it were yesterday I remember the preparations,

the departure with my teacher and my mother, the journey, and

finally the arrival in Boston. How different this journey was

from the one I had made to Baltimore two years before! I was no

longer a restless, excitable little creature, requiring the

attention of everybody on the train to keep me amused. I sat

quietly beside Miss Sullivan, taking in with eager interest all

that she told me about what she saw out of the car window: the

beautiful Tennessee River, the great cotton-fields, the hills and

woods, and the crowds of laughing negroes at the stations, who

waved to the people on the train and brought delicious candy and

popcorn balls through the car. On the seat opposite me sat my big

rag doll, Nancy, in a new gingham dress and a beruffled

sunbonnet, looking at me out of two bead eyes. Sometimes, when I

was not absorbed in Miss Sullivan's descriptions, I remembered

Nancy's existence and took her up in my arms, but I generally

calmed my conscience by making myself believe that she was

asleep.

As I shall not have occasion to refer to Nancy again, I wish to

tell here a sad experience she had soon after our arrival in

Boston. She was covered with dirt-the remains of mud pies I had

compelled her to eat, although she had never shown any special

liking for them. The laundress at the Perkins Institution

secretly carried her off to give her a bath. This was too much

for poor Nancy. When I next saw her she was a formless heap of

cotton, which I should not have recognized at all except for the

two bead eyes which looked out at me reproachfully.

When the train at last pulled into the station at Boston it was

as if a beautiful fairy tale had come true. The "once upon a

time" was now; the "far-away country" was here.

We had scarcely arrived at the Perkins Institution for the Blind

when I began to make friends with the little blind children. It

delighted me inexpressibly to find that they knew the manual

alphabet. What joy to talk with other children in my own

language! Until then I had been like a foreigner speaking through

an interpreter. In the school where Laura Bridgman was taught I

was in my own country. It took me some time to appreciate the

fact that my new friends were blind. I knew I could not see; but

it did not seem possible that all the eager, loving children who

gathered round me and joined heartily in my frolics were also

blind. I remember the surprise and the pain I felt as I noticed

that they placed their hands over mine when I talked to them and

that they read books with their fingers. Although I had been told

this before, and although I understood my own deprivations, yet I

had thought vaguely that since they could hear, they must have a

sort of "second sight," and I was not prepared to find one child

and another and yet another deprived of the same precious gift.

But they were so happy and contented that I lost all sense of

pain in the pleasure of their companionship.

One day spent with the blind children made me feel thoroughly at

home in my new environment, and I looked eagerly from one

pleasant experience to another as the days flew swiftly by. I

could not quite convince myself that there was much world left,

for I regarded Boston as the beginning and the end of creation.

While we were in Boston we visited Bunker Hill, and there I had

my first lesson in history. The story of the brave men who had

fought on the spot where we stood excited me greatly. I climbed

the monument, counting the steps, and wondering as I went higher

and yet higher if the soldiers had climbed this great stairway

and shot at the enemy on the ground below.

The next day we went to Plymouth by water. This was my first trip

on the ocean and my first voyage in a steamboat. How full of life

and motion it was! But the rumble of the machinery made me think

it was thundering, and I began to cry, because I feared if it

rained we should not be able to have our picnic out of doors. I

was more interested, I think, in the great rock on which the

Pilgrims landed than in anything else in Plymouth. I could touch

it, and perhaps that made the coming of the Pilgrims and their

toils and great deeds seem more real to me. I have often held in

my hand a little model of the Plymouth Rock which a kind

gentleman gave me at Pilgrim Hall, and I have fingered its

curves, the split in the centre and the embossed figures "1620,"

and turned over in my mind all that I knew about the wonderful

story of the Pilgrims.

How my childish imagination glowed with the splendour of their

enterprise! I idealized them as the bravest and most generous men

that ever sought a home in a strange land. I thought they desired

the freedom of their fellow men as well as their own. I was

keenly surprised and disappointed years later to learn of their

acts of persecution that make us tingle with shame, even while we

glory in the courage and energy that gave us our "Country

Beautiful."

Among the many friends I made in Boston were Mr. William Endicott

and his daughter. Their kindness to me was the seed from which

many pleasant memories have since grown. One day we visited their

beautiful home at Beverly Farms. I remember with delight how I

went through their rose-garden, how their dogs, big Leo and

little curly-haired Fritz with long ears, came to meet me, and

how Nimrod, the swiftest of the horses, poked his nose into my

hands for a pat and a lump of sugar. I also remember the beach,

where for the first time I played in the sand. It was hard,

smooth sand, very different from the loose, sharp sand, mingled

with kelp and shells, at Brewster. Mr. Endicott told me about the

great ships that came sailing by from Boston, bound for Europe. I

saw him many times after that, and he was always a good friend to

me; indeed, I was thinking of him when I called Boston "the City

of Kind Hearts."

Chapter X

Just before the Perkins Institution closed for the summer, it was

arranged that my teacher and I should spend our vacation at

Brewster, on Cape Cod, with our dear friend, Mrs. Hopkins. I was

delighted, for my mind was full of the prospective joys and of

the wonderful stories I had heard about the sea.

My most vivid recollection of that summer is the ocean. I had

always lived far inland and had never had so much as a whiff of

salt air; but I had read in a big book called "Our World" a

description of the ocean which filled me with wonder and an

intense longing to touch the mighty sea and feel it roar. So my

little heart leaped high with eager excitement when I knew that

my wish was at last to be realized.

No sooner had I been helped into my bathing-suit than I sprang

out upon the warm sand and without thought of fear plunged into

the cool water. I felt the great billows rock and sink. The

buoyant motion of the water filled me with an exquisite,

quivering joy. Suddenly my ecstasy gave place to terror; for my

foot struck against a rock and the next instant there was a rush

of water over my head. I thrust out my hands to grasp some

support, I clutched at the water and at the seaweed which the

waves tossed in my face. But all my frantic efforts were in vain.

The waves seemed to be playing a game with me, and tossed me from

one to another in their wild frolic. It was fearful! The good,

firm earth had slipped from my feet, and everything seemed shut

out from this strange, all-enveloping element-life, air, warmth

and love. At last, however, the sea, as if weary of its new toy,

threw me back on the shore, and in another instant I was clasped

in my teacher's arms. Oh, the comfort of the long, tender

embrace! As soon as I had recovered from my panic sufficiently to

say anything, I demanded: "Who put salt in the water?"

After I had recovered from my first experience in the water, I

thought it great fun to sit on a big rock in my bathing-suit and

feel wave after wave dash against the rock, sending up a shower

of spray which quite covered me. I felt the pebbles rattling as

the waves threw their ponderous weight against the shore; the

whole beach seemed racked by their terrific onset, and the air

throbbed with their pulsations. The breakers would swoop back to

gather themselves for a mightier leap, and I clung to the rock,

tense, fascinated, as I felt the dash and roar of the rushing

sea!

I could never stay long enough on the shore. The tang of the

untainted, fresh and free sea air was like a cool, quieting

thought, and the shells and pebbles and the seaweed with tiny

living creatures attached to it never lost their fascination for

me. One day Miss Sullivan attracted my attention to a strange

object which she had captured basking in the shallow water. It

was a great horseshoe crab-the first one I had ever seen. I felt

of him and thought it very strange that he should carry his house

on his back. It suddenly occurred to me that he might make a

delightful pet; so I seized him by the tail with both hands and

carried him home. This feat pleased me highly, as his body was

very heavy, and it took all my strength to drag him half a mile.

I would not leave Miss Sullivan in peace until she had put the

crab in a trough near the well where I was confident he would be

secure. But next morning I went to the trough, and lo, he had

disappeared! Nobody knew where he had gone, or how he had

escaped. My disappointment was bitter at the time; but little by

little I came to realize that it was not kind or wise to force

this poor dumb creature out of his element, and after awhile I

felt happy in the thought that perhaps he had returned to the

sea.

Chapter XI

In the autumn I returned to my Southern home with a heart full of

joyous memories. As I recall that visit North I am filled with

wonder at the richness and variety of the experiences that

cluster about it. It seems to have been the beginning of

everything. The treasures of a new, beautiful world were laid at

my feet, and I took in pleasure and information at every turn. I

lived myself into all things. I was never still a moment; my life

was as full of motion as those little insects that crowd a whole

existence into one brief day. I met many people who talked with

me by spelling into my hand, and thought in joyous sympathy

leaped up to meet thought, and behold, a miracle had been

wrought! The barren places between my mind and the minds of

others blossomed like the rose.

I spent the autumn months with my family at our summer cottage,

on a mountain about fourteen miles from Tuscumbia. It was called

Fern Quarry, because near it there was a limestone quarry, long

since abandoned. Three frolicsome little streams ran through it

from springs in the rocks above, leaping here and tumbling there

in laughing cascades wherever the rocks tried to bar their way.

The opening was filled with ferns which completely covered the

beds of limestone and in places hid the streams. The rest of the

mountain was thickly wooded. Here were great oaks and splendid

evergreens with trunks like mossy pillars, from the branches of

which hung garlands of ivy and mistletoe, and persimmon trees,

the odour of which pervaded every nook and corner of the wood-an

illusive, fragrant something that made the heart glad. In places

the wild muscadine and scuppernong vines stretched from tree to

tree, making arbours which were always full of butterflies and

buzzing insects. It was delightful to lose ourselves in the green

hollows of that tangled wood in the late afternoon, and to smell

the cool, delicious odours that came up from the earth at the

close of day.

Our cottage was a sort of rough camp, beautifully situated on the

top of the mountain among oaks and pines. The small rooms were

arranged on each side of a long open hall. Round the house was a

wide piazza, where the mountain winds blew, sweet with all

wood-scents. We lived on the piazza most of the time-there we

worked, ate and played. At the back door there was a great

butternut tree, round which the steps had been built, and in

front the trees stood so close that I could touch them and feel

the wind shake their branches, or the leaves twirl downward in

the autumn blast.

Many visitors came to Fern Quarry. In the evening, by the

campfire, the men played cards and whiled away the hours in talk

and sport. They told stories of their wonderful feats with fowl,

fish and quadruped-how many wild ducks and turkeys they had

shot, what "savage trout" they had caught, and how they had

bagged the craftiest foxes, outwitted the most clever 'possums

and overtaken the fleetest deer, until I thought that surely the

lion, the tiger, the bear and the rest of the wild tribe would

not be able to stand before these wily hunters. "To-morrow to the

chase!" was their good-night shout as the circle of merry friends

broke up for the night. The men slept in the hall outside our

door, and I could feel the deep breathing of the dogs and the

hunters as they lay on their improvised beds.

At dawn I was awakened by the smell of coffee, the rattling of

guns, and the heavy footsteps of the men as they strode about,

promising themselves the greatest luck of the season. I could

also feel the stamping of the horses, which they had ridden out

from town and hitched under the trees, where they stood all

night, neighing loudly, impatient to be off. At last the men

mounted, and, as they say in the old songs, away went the steeds

with bridles ringing and whips cracking and hounds racing ahead,

and away went the champion hunters "with hark and whoop and wild

halloo!"

Later in the morning we made preparations for a barbecue. A fire

was kindled at the bottom of a deep hole in the ground, big

sticks were laid crosswise at the top, and meat was hung from

them and turned on spits. Around the fire squatted negroes,

driving away the flies with long branches. The savoury odour of

the meat made me hungry long before the tables were set.

When the bustle and excitement of preparation was at its height,

the hunting party made its appearance, struggling in by twos and

threes, the men hot and weary, the horses covered with foam, and

the jaded hounds panting and dejected-and not a single kill!

Every man declared that he had seen at least one deer, and that

the animal had come very close; but however hotly the dogs might

pursue the game, however well the guns might be aimed, at the

snap of the trigger there was not a deer in sight. They had been

as fortunate as the little boy who said he came very near seeing

a rabbit-he saw his tracks. The party soon forgot its

disappointment, however, and we sat down, not to venison, but to

a tamer feast of veal and roast pig.

One summer I had my pony at Fern Quarry. I called him Black

Beauty, as I had just read the book, and he resembled his

namesake in every way, from his glossy black coat to the white

star on his forehead. I spent many of my happiest hours on his

back. Occasionally, when it was quite safe, my teacher would let

go the leading-rein, and the pony sauntered on or stopped at his

sweet will to eat grass or nibble the leaves of the trees that

grew beside the narrow trail.

On mornings when I did not care for the ride, my teacher and I

would start after breakfast for a ramble in the woods, and allow

ourselves to get lost amid the trees and vines, with no road to

follow except the paths made by cows and horses. Frequently we

came upon impassable thickets which forced us to take a round

about way. We always returned to the cottage with armfuls of

laurel, goldenrod, ferns and gorgeous swamp-flowers such as grow

only in the South.

Sometimes I would go with Mildred and my little cousins to gather

persimmons. I did not eat them; but I loved their fragrance and

enjoyed hunting for them in the leaves and grass. We also went

nutting, and I helped them open the chestnut burrs and break the

shells of hickory-nuts and walnuts-the big, sweet walnuts!

At the foot of the mountain there was a railroad, and the

children watched the trains whiz by. Sometimes a terrific whistle

brought us to the steps, and Mildred told me in great excitement

that a cow or a horse had strayed on the track. About a mile

distant there was a trestle spanning a deep gorge. It was very

difficult to walk over, the ties were wide apart and so narrow

that one felt as if one were walking on knives. I had never

crossed it until one day Mildred, Miss Sullivan and I were lost

in the woods, and wandered for hours without finding a path.

Suddenly Mildred pointed with her little hand and exclaimed,

"There's the trestle!" We would have taken any way rather than

this; but it was late and growing dark, and the trestle was a

short cut home. I had to feel for the rails with my toe; but I

was not afraid, and got on very well, until all at once there

came a faint "puff, puff" from the distance.

"I see the train!" cried Mildred, and in another minute it would

have been upon us had we not climbed down on the crossbraces

while it rushed over our heads. I felt the hot breath from the

engine on my face, and the smoke and ashes almost choked us. As

the train rumbled by, the trestle shook and swayed until I

thought we should be dashed to the chasm below. With the utmost

difficulty we regained the track. Long after dark we reached home

and found the cottage empty; the family were all out hunting for

us.

Chapter XII

After my first visit to Boston, I spent almost every winter in

the North. Once I went on a visit to a New England village with

its frozen lakes and vast snow fields. It was then that I had

opportunities such as had never been mine to enter into the

treasures of the snow.

I recall my surprise on discovering that a mysterious hand had

stripped the trees and bushes, leaving only here and there a

wrinkled leaf. The birds had flown, and their empty nests in the

bare trees were filled with snow. Winter was on hill and field.

The earth seemed benumbed by his icy touch, and the very spirits

of the trees had withdrawn to their roots, and there, curled up

in the dark, lay fast asleep. All life seemed to have ebbed away,

and even when the sun shone the day was

Shrunk and cold,

As if her veins were sapless and old,

And she rose up decrepitly

For a last dim look at earth and sea.

The withered grass and the bushes were transformed into a forest

of icicles.

Then came a day when the chill air portended a snowstorm. We

rushed out-of-doors to feel the first few tiny flakes descending.

Hour by hour the flakes dropped silently, softly from their airy

height to the earth, and the country became more and more level.

A snowy night closed upon the world, and in the morning one could

scarcely recognize a feature of the landscape. All the roads were

hidden, not a single landmark was visible, only a waste of snow

with trees rising out of it.

In the evening a wind from the northeast sprang up, and the

flakes rushed hither and thither in furious melee. Around the

great fire we sat and told merry tales, and frolicked, and quite

forgot that we were in the midst of a desolate solitude, shut in

from all communication with the outside world. But during the

night the fury of the wind increased to such a degree that it

thrilled us with a vague terror. The rafters creaked and

strained, and the branches of the trees surrounding the house

rattled and beat against the windows, as the winds rioted up and

down the country.

On the third day after the beginning of the storm the snow

ceased. The sun broke through the clouds and shone upon a vast,

undulating white plain. High mounds, pyramids heaped in fantastic

shapes, and impenetrable drifts lay scattered in every direction.

Narrow paths were shoveled through the drifts. I put on my cloak

and hood and went out. The air stung my cheeks like fire. Half

walking in the paths, half working our way through the lesser

drifts, we succeeded in reaching a pine grove just outside a

broad pasture. The trees stood motionless and white like figures

in a marble frieze. There was no odour of pine-needles. The rays

of the sun fell upon the trees, so that the twigs sparkled like

diamonds and dropped in showers when we touched them. So dazzling

was the light, it penetrated even the darkness that veils my

eyes.

As the days wore on, the drifts gradually shrunk, but before they

were wholly gone another storm came, so that I scarcely felt the

earth under my feet once all winter. At intervals the trees lost

their icy covering, and the bulrushes and underbrush were bare;

but the lake lay frozen and hard beneath the sun.

Our favourite amusement during that winter was tobogganing. In

places the shore of the lake rises abruptly from the water's

edge. Down these steep slopes we used to coast. We would get on

our toboggan, a boy would give us a shove, and off we went!

Plunging through drifts, leaping hollows, swooping down upon the

lake, we would shoot across its gleaming surface to the opposite

bank. What joy! What exhilarating madness! For one wild, glad

moment we snapped the chain that binds us to earth, and joining

hands with the winds we felt ourselves divine!

Chapter XIII

It was in the spring of 1890 that I learned to speak. The impulse

to utter audible sounds had always been strong within me. I used

to make noises, keeping one hand on my throat while the other

hand felt the movements of my lips. I was pleased with anything

that made a noise and liked to feel the cat purr and the dog

bark. I also liked to keep my hand on a singer's throat, or on a

piano when it was being played. Before I lost my sight and

hearing, I was fast learning to talk, but after my illness it was

found that I had ceased to speak because I could not hear. I used

to sit in my mother's lap all day long and keep my hands on her

face because it amused me to feel the motions of her lips; and I

moved my lips, too, although I had forgotten what talking was. My

friends say that I laughed and cried naturally, and for awhile I

made many sounds and word-elements, not because they were a means

of communication, but because the need of exercising my vocal

organs was imperative. There was, however, one word the meaning

of which I still remembered, WATER. I pronounced it "wa-wa." Even

this became less and less intelligible until the time when Miss

Sullivan began to teach me. I stopped using it only after I had

learned to spell the word on my fingers.

I had known for a long time that the people about me used a

method of communication different from mine; and even before I

knew that a deaf child could be taught to speak, I was conscious

of dissatisfaction with the means of communication I already

possessed. One who is entirely dependent upon the manual alphabet

has always a sense of restraint, of narrowness. This feeling

began to agitate me with a vexing, forward-reaching sense of a

lack that should be filled. My thoughts would often rise and beat

up like birds against the wind, and I persisted in using my lips

and voice. Friends tried to discourage this tendency, fearing

lest it would lead to disappointment. But I persisted, and an

accident soon occurred which resulted in the breaking down of

this great barrier-I heard the story of Ragnhild Kaata.

In 1890 Mrs. Lamson, who had been one of Laura Bridgman's

teachers, and who had just returned from a visit to Norway and

Sweden, came to see me, and told me of Ragnhild Kaata, a deaf and

blind girl in Norway who had actually been taught to speak. Mrs.

Lamson had scarcely finished telling me about this girl's success

before I was on fire with eagerness. I resolved that I, too,

would learn to speak. I would not rest satisfied until my teacher

took me, for advice and assistance, to Miss Sarah Fuller,

principal of the Horace Mann School. This lovely, sweet-natured

lady offered to teach me herself, and we began the twenty-sixth

of March, 1890.

Miss Fuller's method was this: she passed my hand lightly over

her face, and let me feel the position of her tongue and lips

when she made a sound. I was eager to imitate every motion and in

an hour had learned six elements of speech: M, P, A, S, T, I.

Miss Fuller gave me eleven lessons in all. I shall never forget

the surprise and delight I felt when I uttered my first connected

sentence, "It is warm." True, they were broken and stammering

syllables; but they were human speech. My soul, conscious of new

strength, came out of bondage, and was reaching through those

broken symbols of speech to all knowledge and all faith.

No deaf child who has earnestly tried to speak the words which he

has never heard-to come out of the prison of silence, where no

tone of love, no song of bird, no strain of music ever pierces

the stillness-can forget the thrill of surprise, the joy of

discovery which came over him when he uttered his first word.

Only such a one can appreciate the eagerness with which I talked

to my toys, to stones, trees, birds and dumb animals, or the

delight I felt when at my call Mildred ran to me or my dogs

obeyed my commands. It is an unspeakable boon to me to be able to

speak in winged words that need no interpretation. As I talked,

happy thoughts fluttered up out of my words that might perhaps

have struggled in vain to escape my fingers.

But it must not be supposed that I could really talk in this

short time. I had learned only the elements of speech. Miss

Fuller and Miss Sullivan could understand me, but most people

would not have understood one word in a hundred. Nor is it true

that, after I had learned these elements, I did the rest of the

work myself. But for Miss Sullivan's genius, untiring

perseverance and devotion, I could not have progressed as far as

I have toward natural speech. In the first place, I laboured

night and day before I could be understood even by my most

intimate friends; in the second place, I needed Miss Sullivan's

assistance constantly in my efforts to articulate each sound

clearly and to combine all sounds in a thousand ways. Even now

she calls my attention every day to mispronounced words.

All teachers of the deaf know what this means, and only they can

at all appreciate the peculiar difficulties with which I had to

contend. In reading my teacher's lips I was wholly dependent on

my fingers: I had to use the sense of touch in catching the

vibrations of the throat, the movements of the mouth and the

expression of the face; and often this sense was at fault. In

such cases I was forced to repeat the words or sentences,

sometimes for hours, until I felt the proper ring in my own

voice. My work was practice, practice, practice. Discouragement

and weariness cast me down frequently; but the next moment the

thought that I should soon be at home and show my loved ones what

I had accomplished, spurred me on, and I eagerly looked forward

to their pleasure in my achievement.

"My little sister will understand me now," was a thought stronger

than all obstacles. I used to repeat ecstatically, "I am not dumb

now." I could not be despondent while I anticipated the delight

of talking to my mother and reading her responses from her lips.

It astonished me to find how much easier it is to talk than to

spell with the fingers, and I discarded the manual alphabet as a

medium of communication on my part; but Miss Sullivan and a few

friends still use it in speaking to me, for it is more convenient

and more rapid than lip-reading.

Just here, perhaps, I had better explain our use of the manual

alphabet, which seems to puzzle people who do not know us. One

who reads or talks to me spells with his hand, using the

single-hand manual alphabet generally employed by the deaf. I

place my hand on the hand of the speaker so lightly as not to

impede its movements. The position of the hand is as easy to feel

as it is to see. I do not feel each letter any more than you see

each letter separately when you read. Constant practice makes the

fingers very flexible, and some of my friends spell

rapidly-about as fast as an expert writes on a typewriter. The

mere spelling is, of course, no more a conscious act than it is

in writing.

When I had made speech my own, I could not wait to go home. At

last the happiest of happy moments arrived. I had made my

homeward journey, talking constantly to Miss Sullivan, not for

the sake of talking, but determined to improve to the last

minute. Almost before I knew it, the train stopped at the

Tuscumbia station, and there on the platform stood the whole

family. My eyes fill with tears now as I think how my mother

pressed me close to her, speechless and trembling with delight,

taking in every syllable that I spoke, while little Mildred

seized my free hand and kissed it and danced, and my father

expressed his pride and affection in a big silence. It was as if

Isaiah's prophecy had been fulfilled in me, "The mountains and

the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the

trees of the field shall clap their hands!"

Chapter XIV

The winter of 1892 was darkened by the one cloud in my

childhood's bright sky. Joy deserted my heart, and for a long,

long time I lived in doubt, anxiety and fear. Books lost their

charm for me, and even now the thought of those dreadful days

chills my heart. A little story called "The Frost King," which I

wrote and sent to Mr. Anagnos, of the Perkins Institution for the

Blind, was at the root of the trouble. In order to make the

matter clear, I must set forth the facts connected with this

episode, which justice to my teacher and to myself compels me to

relate.

I wrote the story when I was at home, the autumn after I had

learned to speak. We had stayed up at Fern Quarry later than

usual. While we were there, Miss Sullivan had described to me the

beauties of the late foliage, and it seems that her descriptions

revived the memory of a story, which must have been read to me,

and which I must have unconsciously retained. I thought then that

I was "making up a story," as children say, and I eagerly sat

down to write it before the ideas should slip from me. My

thoughts flowed easily; I felt a sense of joy in the composition.

Words and images came tripping to my finger ends, and as I

thought out sentence after sentence, I wrote them on my braille

slate. Now, if words and images come to me without effort, it is

a pretty sure sign that they are not the offspring of my own

mind, but stray waifs that I regretfully dismiss. At that time I

eagerly absorbed everything I read without a thought of

authorship, and even now I cannot be quite sure of the boundary

line between my ideas and those I find in books. I suppose that

is because so many of my impressions come to me through the

medium of others' eyes and ears.

When the story was finished, I read it to my teacher, and I

recall now vividly the pleasure I felt in the more beautiful

passages, and my annoyance at being interrupted to have the

pronunciation of a word corrected. At dinner it was read to the

assembled family, who were surprised that I could write so well.

Some one asked me if I had read it in a book.

This question surprised me very much; for I had not the faintest

recollection of having had it read to me. I spoke up and said,

"Oh, no, it is my story, and I have written it for Mr. Anagnos."

Accordingly I copied the story and sent it to him for his

birthday. It was suggested that I should change the title from

"Autumn Leaves" to "The Frost King," which I did. I carried the

little story to the post-office myself, feeling as if I were

walking on air. I little dreamed how cruelly I should pay for

that birthday gift.

Mr. Anagnos was delighted with "The Frost King," and published it

in one of the Perkins Institution reports. This was the pinnacle

of my happiness, from which I was in a little while dashed to

earth. I had been in Boston only a short time when it was

discovered that a story similar to "The Frost King," called "The

Frost Fairies" by Miss Margaret T. Canby, had appeared before I

was born in a book called "Birdie and His Friends." The two

stories were so much alike in thought and language that it was

evident Miss Canby's story had been read to me, and that mine

was-a plagiarism. It was difficult to make me understand this;

but when I did understand I was astonished and grieved. No child

ever drank deeper of the cup of bitterness than I did. I had

disgraced myself; I had brought suspicion upon those I loved

best. And yet how could it possibly have happened? I racked my

brain until I was weary to recall anything about the frost that I

had read before I wrote "The Frost King"; but I could remember

nothing, except the common reference to Jack Frost, and a poem

for children, "The Freaks of the Frost," and I knew I had not

used that in my composition.

At first Mr. Anagnos, though deeply troubled, seemed to believe

me. He was unusually tender and kind to me, and for a brief space

the shadow lifted. To please him I tried not to be unhappy, and

to make myself as pretty as possible for the celebration of

Washington's birthday, which took place very soon after I

received the sad news.

I was to be Ceres in a kind of masque given by the blind girls.

How well I remember the graceful draperies that enfolded me, the

bright autumn leaves that wreathed my head, and the fruit and

grain at my feet and in my hands, and beneath all the piety of

the masque the oppressive sense of coming ill that made my heart

heavy.

The night before the celebration, one of the teachers of the

Institution had asked me a question connected with "The Frost

King," and I was telling her that Miss Sullivan had talked to me

about Jack Frost and his wonderful works. Something I said made

her think she detected in my words a confession that I did

remember Miss Canby's story of "The Frost Fairies," and she laid

her conclusions before Mr. Anagnos, although I had told her most

emphatically that she was mistaken.

Mr. Anagnos, who loved me tenderly, thinking that he had been

deceived, turned a deaf ear to the pleadings of love and

innocence. He believed, or at least suspected, that Miss Sullivan

and I had deliberately stolen the bright thoughts of another and

imposed them on him to win his admiration. I was brought before a

court of investigation composed of the teachers and officers of

the Institution, and Miss Sullivan was asked to leave me. Then I

was questioned and cross-questioned with what seemed to me a

determination on the part of my judges to force me to acknowledge

that I remembered having had "The Frost Fairies" read to me. I

felt in every question the doubt and suspicion that was in their

minds, and I felt, too, that a loved friend was looking at me

reproachfully, although I could not have put all this into words.

The blood pressed about my thumping heart, and I could scarcely

speak, except in monosyllables. Even the consciousness that it

was only a dreadful mistake did not lessen my suffering, and when

at last I was allowed to leave the room, I was dazed and did not

notice my teacher's caresses, or the tender words of my friends,

who said I was a brave little girl and they were proud of me.

As I lay in my bed that night, I wept as I hope few children have

wept. I felt so cold, I imagined I should die before morning, and

the thought comforted me. I think if this sorrow had come to me

when I was older, it would have broken my spirit beyond

repairing. But the angel of forgetfulness has gathered up and

carried away much of the misery and all the bitterness of those

sad days.

Miss Sullivan had never heard of "The Frost Fairies" or of the

book in which it was published. With the assistance of Dr.

Alexander Graham Bell, she investigated the matter carefully, and

at last it came out that Mrs. Sophia C. Hopkins had a copy of

Miss Canby's "Birdie and His Friends" in 1888, the year that we

spent the summer with her at Brewster. Mrs. Hopkins was unable to

find her copy; but she has told me that at that time, while Miss

Sullivan was away on a vacation, she tried to amuse me by reading

from various books, and although she could not remember reading

"The Frost Fairies" any more than I, yet she felt sure that

"Birdie and His Friends" was one of them. She explained the

disappearance of the book by the fact that she had a short time

before sold her house and disposed of many juvenile books, such

as old schoolbooks and fairy tales, and that "Birdie and His

Friends" was probably among them.

The stories had little or no meaning for me then; but the mere

spelling of the strange words was sufficient to amuse a little

child who could do almost nothing to amuse herself; and although

I do not recall a single circumstance connected with the reading

of the stories, yet I cannot help thinking that I made a great

effort to remember the words, with the intention of having my

teacher explain them when she returned. One thing is certain, the

language was ineffaceably stamped upon my brain, though for a

long time no one knew it, least of all myself.

When Miss Sullivan came back, I did not speak to her about "The

Frost Fairies," probably because she began at once to read

"Little Lord Fauntleroy," which filled my mind to the exclusion

of everything else. But the fact remains that Miss Canby's story

was read to me once, and that long after I had forgotten it, it

came back to me so naturally that I never suspected that it was

the child of another mind.

In my trouble I received many messages of love and sympathy. All

the friends I loved best, except one, have remained my own to the

present time.

Miss Canby herself wrote kindly, "Some day you will write a great

story out of your own head, that will be a comfort and help to

many." But this kind prophecy has never been fulfilled. I have

never played with words again for the mere pleasure of the game.

Indeed, I have ever since been tortured by the fear that what I

write is not my own. For a long time, when I wrote a letter, even

to my mother, I was seized with a sudden feeling of terror, and I

would spell the sentences over and over, to make sure that I had

not read them in a book. Had it not been for the persistent

encouragement of Miss Sullivan, I think I should have given up

trying to write altogether.

I have read "The Frost Fairies" since, also the letters I wrote

in which I used other ideas of Miss Canby's. I find in one of

them, a letter to Mr. Anagnos, dated September 29, 1891, words

and sentiments exactly like those of the book. At the time I was

writing "The Frost King," and this letter, like many others,

contains phrases which show that my mind was saturated with the

story. I represent my teacher as saying to me of the golden

autumn leaves, "Yes, they are beautiful enough to comfort us for

the flight of summer"-an idea direct from Miss Canby's story.

This habit of assimilating what pleased me and giving it out

again as my own appears in much of my early correspondence and my

first attempts at writing. In a composition which I wrote about

the old cities of Greece and Italy, I borrowed my glowing

descriptions, with variations, from sources I have forgotten. I

knew Mr. Anagnos's great love of antiquity and his enthusiastic

appreciation of all beautiful sentiments about Italy and Greece.

I therefore gathered from all the books I read every bit of

poetry or of history that I thought would give him pleasure. Mr.

Anagnos, in speaking of my composition on the cities, has said,

"These ideas are poetic in their essence." But I do not

understand how he ever thought a blind and deaf child of eleven

could have invented them. Yet I cannot think that because I did

not originate the ideas, my little composition is therefore quite

devoid of interest. It shows me that I could express my

appreciation of beautiful and poetic ideas in clear and animated

language.

Those early compositions were mental gymnastics. I was learning,

as all young and inexperienced persons learn, by assimilation and

imitation, to put ideas into words. Everything I found in books

that pleased me I retained in my memory, consciously or

unconsciously, and adapted it. The young writer, as Stevenson has

said, instinctively tries to copy whatever seems most admirable,

and he shifts his admiration with astonishing versatility. It is

only after years of this sort of practice that even great men

have learned to marshal the legion of words which come thronging

through every byway of the mind.

I am afraid I have not yet completed this process. It is certain

that I cannot always distinguish my own thoughts from those I

read, because what I read becomes the very substance and texture

of my mind. Consequently, in nearly all that I write, I produce

something which very much resembles the crazy patchwork I used to

make when I first learned to sew. This patchwork was made of all

sorts of odds and ends-pretty bits of silk and velvet; but the

coarse pieces that were not pleasant to touch always

predominated. Likewise my compositions are made up of crude

notions of my own, inlaid with the brighter thoughts and riper

opinions of the authors I have read. It seems to me that the

great difficulty of writing is to make the language of the

educated mind express our confused ideas, half feelings, half

thoughts, when we are little more than bundles of instinctive

tendencies. Trying to write is very much like trying to put a

Chinese puzzle together. We have a pattern in mind which we wish

to work out in words; but the words will not fit the spaces, or,

if they do, they will not match the design. But we keep on trying

because we know that others have succeeded, and we are not

willing to acknowledge defeat.

"There is no way to become original, except to be born so," says

Stevenson, and although I may not be original, I hope sometime to

outgrow my artificial, periwigged compositions. Then, perhaps, my

own thoughts and experiences will come to the surface. Meanwhile

I trust and hope and persevere, and try not to let the bitter

memory of "The Frost King" trammel my efforts.

So this sad experience may have done me good and set me thinking

on some of the problems of composition. My only regret is that it

resulted in the loss of one of my dearest friends, Mr. Anagnos.

Since the publication of "The Story of My Life" in the Ladies'

Home Journal, Mr. Anagnos has made a statement, in a letter to

Mr. Macy, that at the time of the "Frost King" matter, he

believed I was innocent. He says, the court of investigation

before which I was brought consisted of eight people: four blind,

four seeing persons. Four of them, he says, thought I knew that

Miss Canby's story had been read to me, and the others did not

hold this view. Mr. Anagnos states that he cast his vote with

those who were favourable to me.

But, however the case may have been, with whichever side he may

have cast his vote, when I went into the room where Mr. Anagnos

had so often held me on his knee and, forgetting his many cares,

had shared in my frolics, and found there persons who seemed to

doubt me, I felt that there was something hostile and menacing in

the very atmosphere, and subsequent events have borne out this

impression. For two years he seems to have held the belief that

Miss Sullivan and I were innocent. Then he evidently retracted

his favourable judgment, why I do not know. Nor did I know the

details of the investigation. I never knew even the names of the

members of the "court" who did not speak to me. I was too excited

to notice anything, too frightened to ask questions. Indeed, I

could scarcely think what I was saying, or what was being said to

me.

I have given this account of the "Frost King" affair because it

was important in my life and education; and, in order that there

might be no misunderstanding, I have set forth all the facts as

they appear to me, without a thought of defending myself or of

laying blame on any one.

Chapter XV

The summer and winter following the "Frost King" incident I spent

with my family in Alabama. I recall with delight that home-going.

Everything had budded and blossomed. I was happy. "The Frost

King" was forgotten.

When the ground was strewn with the crimson and golden leaves of

autumn, and the musk-scented grapes that covered the arbour at

the end of the garden were turning golden brown in the sunshine,

I began to write a sketch of my life-a year after I had written

"The Frost King."

I was still excessively scrupulous about everything I wrote. The

thought that what I wrote might not be absolutely my own

tormented me. No one knew of these fears except my teacher. A

strange sensitiveness prevented me from referring to the "Frost

King"; and often when an idea flashed out in the course of

conversation I would spell softly to her, "I am not sure it is

mine." At other times, in the midst of a paragraph I was writing,

I said to myself, "Suppose it should be found that all this was

written by some one long ago!" An impish fear clutched my hand,

so that I could not write any more that day. And even now I

sometimes feel the same uneasiness and disquietude. Miss Sullivan

consoled and helped me in every way she could think of; but the

terrible experience I had passed through left a lasting

impression on my mind, the significance of which I am only just

beginning to understand. It was with the hope of restoring my

self-confidence that she persuaded me to write for the Youth's

Companion a brief account of my life. I was then twelve years

old. As I look back on my struggle to write that little story, it

seems to me that I must have had a prophetic vision of the good

that would come of the undertaking, or I should surely have

failed.

I wrote timidly, fearfully, but resolutely, urged on by my

teacher, who knew that if I persevered, I should find my mental

foothold again and get a grip on my faculties. Up to the time of

the "Frost King" episode, I had lived the unconscious life of a


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